The Presumpscot is improving after decades of industry have relied upon it
The Presumpscot River gleams as it courses downstream from Sebago Lake through untouched forests and parks, past defunct mills, through downtown Westbrook and into Casco Bay.
Once a power source for the Industrial Revolution in Maine, the Presumpscot has, in recent years, been transformed into a hot spot for fishing, hiking, kayaking and other types of recreation. Native fish can swim freely in the lower watershed and landlocked salmon and trout from Sebago Lake now have access to the upper watershed.
Once a river where industrial waste and sewer was routinely discharged, a third of the Presumpscot is now deemed environmental Class A, allowing no direct discharges.
Much of the river’s renewal has been made possible by the Presumpscot River Watershed Coalition – a coalition of local environmental groups who have partnered with towns and state agencies to revive the river.
As part of this coalition, Presumpscot River Watch now conducts routine tests of the river for E. coli bacteria and dissolved oxygen. Portland Trails is actively purchasing land along the river corridor for public access, and Friends of the Presumpscot River and the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership are working to restore fish habitat to parts of the river that have historically been made stagnant and polluted by riverside industries.
On a recent tour of the river, the coalition discussed the Presumpscot’s industrial history and what has been done to improve the river habitat. However, the future of the Presumpscot still relies on cooperation between these environmental groups, industries like SAPPI Fine Paper that still straddle the river and towns the river runs through.
The relationships haven’t always been cooperative, however. The environmental groups have sometimes found themselves at odds with SAPPI Fine Paper, which has sought to remove environmental stipulations on the operation of five of its seven dams.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up an appeal from SAPPI against a state order to install fish passage at five of its dams and other environmental provisions from the dam licenses. SAPPI had previously appealed to the Maine Supreme Court, but the Court upheld the provisions.
Tour highlights
Last Thursday’s “Sebago to the sea” tour gave Presumpscot River Watershed Coalition partners and state and town officials a chance to see firsthand how the river has changed and ask questions of environmental agencies engaged in the river’s revival.
“Today, people don’t think of the Presumpscot River as a lost cause,” said Will Plumley, a Friends of the Presumpscot founder and chairman of the coalition.
The tour highlighted river vistas and trails at Allen Avenue Ext. Bridge in Falmouth, the river loop at Gambo Bridge crossing from Windham to Gorham and Saccarappa Park in Westbrook.
Plumley said the river has remade its image from being a river of “collective community shame” into a river of “collective community pride.”
At Gambo Bridge, Forrest Bell, executive director of Presumpscot River Watch, demonstrated how his team of volunteers collect samples from the river to test for temperature, acidity (pH), E. coli bacteria and dissolved oxygen. River Watch takes samples from more than 30 spots along the river. Their mission is to be “stewards” of the river and raise awareness of water quality issues through scientific monitoring.
At Saccarappa Park, Eric Carson, economic director for Westbrook, showed off a glossy map that outlined the city’s proposal for its Riverwalk. The Riverwalk would lead from Yudy’s Island, along the boardwalk at Saccarappa Park to Riverbank Park, cross Black Bridge, and loop back along the other side of the river.
The river “is a resource that’s remarkable because it runs right through the city,” Carson said.
Carson spoke briefly about turning Yudy’s island into a recreational park and turning Saccarappa Park into a place for retail stores next to the boardwalk at Saccarappa. This would depend upon the town buying Yudy’s Island from SAPPI and the sale of Saccarappa Park to a retail developer.
The sale of Saccarappa Park got mired in controversy a couple years ago when the city cleared the trees and bushes from it to use it as a base for construction workers and vehicles assembling the first part of the Riverwalk. The city abandoned the plan to sell the park to a commercial developer at the time, but requested development proposals for the property again this summer.
Although the city rejected both of the proposals it received this summer, Carson said he hopes to bring the proposed sale of the park parcel back to the City Council for consideration soon.
“We’ve got several interested parties, and we’d like to take a look at it again,” Carson said.
Since SAPPI Fine Paper has ceased pulp production at its Westbrook mill on the river, there has been a renewed commercial interest in Westbrook and an “explosion of residential development,” Carson said.
“It did create a lot of jobs, it did create a lot of paper, but it did create a lot of smell too,” Carson said of SAPPI’s pulp production.
Carson said he did not have an estimate on what the riverwalk would cost. The new boardwalk, from Saccarappa to Riverbank Park, cost around $3 million, he said. Carson plans to pursue state and federal money for the improvements to the Westbrook riverfront.
History of industry
SAPPI, which powers its paper mill from hydroelectric dams along the river, is one of many industries to glean power from the Presumpscot.
During the tour, Lois Winter, conservation biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, recounted the industrial history of the Presumpscot.
In 1730, colonists erected the former Smelt Hill Dam as the first dam built in Maine. And it was “no accident,” Winter noted, that the colonists decided to build on the Presumpscot.
“It was a river that wasn’t too big, and it wasn’t too small,” Winter said. “For better or for worse, the Presumpscot became a workhorse for the Industrial Revolution.”
Over the years, eight other dams were built upstream toward Sebago to supply power to textile, pulp and paper mills and the historic Gambo Powder Mill, the third largest supplier of gunpowder to the Union Army during the Civil War.
Industrial use of the river led to pollution, loss of spawning habitat for fish, and impounded, or stagnated, 22 miles of the 27-mile long river, Winter said.
The destruction of Smelt Hill Dam in 2002 has since opened up “one-third of the watershed” to fish that migrate from the sea to spawn in the Presumpscot, its tributaries and large water bodies like Highland Lake.
This restoration of fish habitat, Winter said, is not only important for the fish, but for the entire ecology of the watershed.
“Fish are the base of the food chain,” said Winter who went on to explain how native birds and other animals rely on fish in the river for food. “It’s all part of one big integrated system.”
With the absence of Smelt Hill Dam, 300 species of fish, like herring, American shad and alewife, can swim freely in waters that have been shut off to them for nearly 300 years.
Fish passage
With the successful demolition of Smelt Hill Dam, the Presumpscot River Coalition is pushing for an expansion of this fish habitat farther upstream toward Sebago Lake. Eight dams remain on the Presumpscot that prevent many fish from traveling upstream to Sebago Lake. One of these dams, Great Falls Dam, is owned by Florida Light and Power, and seven are owned by SAPPI Fine Paper in Westbrook.
The recovery of fish habitat due to the elimination of Smelt Hill Dam is evidence, according to the coalition, of what could happen if other dams were removed as well.
“The moment we give this river a chance to come back, it will.” said Dusti Faucher, one of the founders of the Friends of Presumpscot.
Though Friends of Presumpscot would like to see dam removal in the future, their current goal is to get “fish passage” on the dams so fish can swim upstream to the lakes or downstream to the sea. These “fish passages,” are often made up of ladder chutes that allow fish to “hop” up and over the dam or glide downstream.
Fish passage has been ordered on five of SAPPI’s hydroelectric dams – Saccarappa, Mallison Falls, Little Falls, Gambo and Dundee – as part of a federal relicensing agreement. This order would only go into effect if “fish passage” were installed at the now-defunct Cumberland Mills Dam, also owned by the paper company. However, SAPPI is under no obligation to install fish passage there.
Friends of Presumpscot are now petitioning the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to mandate fish passage on Cumberland Mills Dam so as to force SAPPI to create fishways on the five re-licensed dams.
SAPPI did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Putting fish passage on three dams could cost anywhere between $1 and $8 million and would allow an estimated 56,000 shad and 187,000 river herring to migrate up-river each year to spawn, according to information distributed by the coalition.
The Eel Weir Dam stands at the outlet of Sebago Lake on the Presumpscot River. The dam, which provides S.D. Warren with hydroelectric power, is up for relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.Send questions/comments to the editors.
